On our last afternoon at the National Convention of the American Guild of Organists, we returned to the beautiful nave at St. Cecilia’s for a recital of eclectic and most enjoyable music performed by Chelsea Chen. I first met Chelsea many years ago when she was one of the winners of the Region IX competition, and… Read More Already a superstar
On this last day of the AGO convention, we spent the morning in Wellesley, some 17 miles away from Boston, and went right to Houghton Chapel on the Wellesley College campus. On the Wellesley College website, you can read that: The organ built by the late Charles Brenton Fisk (1925-1983) for Houghton Chapel at Wellesley College is… Read More Morning in Wellesley
If you think that we are exhausted after having gone to an ALCM conference in Portland where we were going nonstop day and night, then coming to Boston for the AGO marathon, you are right. We took the morning off to sleep in and have a leisurely breakfast. The first concert we went to was… Read More AGO Boston: Day Four
Carl decided to sleep in this morning so I came into Boston from Newton Centre all by myself. (You have to give me credit, as I am directionally-challenged!) One great perk of this American Guild of Organists convention is that in addition to the usual convention badge, convention book bag and convention program books (we… Read More Another day at the AGO Boston (marathon)
Tuesday morning was the opening convocation at the Boston 2014 American Guild of Organists convention and as about 1800 of us organists and choirmasters gathered at the Church of the Holy Cross, I couldn’t help but think that this was not your typical Sunday morning congregation. Of course, how many in our parishes have 1800… Read More Not your typical congregation
The usual scheme of concert programming is to schedule one concerto on a single program. But for the opening of the Boston 2014 American Guild of Organists, we heard FIVE organ concertos in one sitting, and all FIVE played stunningly by James David Christie with the Boston Landmark Orchestra, Christopher Wilkins, conductor. The works were:… Read More Five concertos in one night!
We had to get up at the ungodly hour of 3:30 am (!) in order to make our plane to Boston, which left Portland at 5:55 am. We are staying in Newton Centre with our good friend, Edith Ho, who was for many years the organist-choirmaster of the Church of the Advent. She has recently… Read More We are in Boston!
We spent the day with Cheryl and Byron Will; she is an organist-choirmaster of a small Episcopal parish here, and he is a Portland harpsichord builder who has an international clientele. Carl has actually known Cheryl from childhood — it was her father, The Rev. Carl Fischer, who was the pastor of Holy Trinity Lutheran… Read More A day on the coast
After the ALCM conference concluded with an Itinerarium (Sending) service, we spent the entire next day driving to Seattle and back (a round trip of around 400 miles) while Carl took care of some of unexpected executor responsibilities for Peter Hallock. Since then we moved out of the Radisson Hotel and have been staying with former… Read More A little bit of Hawaii in Portland
This was an admonition to us Portland ALCM conference-goers at the final plenary session by The Rev. Paul Hoffman. He told us about the three Bs of the traditional Church, and how this order has contributed to its free fall: Belief, Behave, and Belong. In this order, a baby is baptized into the faith, but… Read More The Church is dying!